Blacklist – The Review

Season 1 of The Blacklist was one of the pleasantly surprising shows of last season, due to the premise of the show, and the stellar performance given by James Spader, who plays Raymond Reddington, a former military man and government agent, who turns to crime, becoming one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals in the process. He mysteriously turns himself in to the FBI, making them an offer to help them catch Ranko Zamani, a terrorist that they thought was long dead, and other criminals on a list he had compiled, under the condition that he only talks to Agent Elizabeth Keen, a profiler that just graduated from Quantico.

The premise of the show is something that is great on TV, because they can bring in new characters every week, and cross them off the proverbial blacklist at the end of each episode, until they finally get to their main target. James Spader seems to be having a lot of fun as the villain in the show, which is a part that he has always played very well in his career. As part of the deal he struck with the FBI, Reddington has to appear to remain free, so his contacts can still communicate with him, and then he will in turn give the information he learns to Keen.

As the season goes on, viewers will start to learn that the motive behind Reddington’s surrender to the FBI, which is to expose and flush out an old adversary, who is trying to kill him. It is also revealed that he has some evidence on high ranking members of the government, and is willing to release the evidence if they don’t stay away from him, and that the man that is after him, has spies even in the FBI, and is also destroying Reddington’s Syndicate.

The first season of the show was very exciting, and kept viewers glued to their seats whenever it was on, the ratings were also very impressive, prompting NBC to order a second season of the show.

In the first season, it was revealed that Reddington had an arrangement with Alan Fitch, who was an Assistant Director of National Intelligence, and also a senior member of a criminal organization, whose secrets are known to Reddington. After finding out that Reddington had surrendered to the FBI, he ordered an attack on the command center of The Blacklist task force, to capture Reddington, and make sure that he hadn’t betrayed him. After being convinced that he hadn’t been betrayed, and that Reddington would release evidence against him if he is harmed, he forbade his men from killing him.

It was also revealed that Agent Keen’s husband was spying on Reddington and the FBI for his adversary, who had been trying to kill him. The second season picks up in the aftermath of those revelations, Agent Keen has to deal with the revelation that her husband had been spying on her, and the fact that she shot him at the end of the season.

Reddington reveals to the FBI that the name of his adversary is Milos Kirchoff, a former member of the KGB, who holds Reddington responsible for the death of his daughter, so Reddington tries to prove his innocence by working with the FBI to find his daughter, who is still alive.

The second season of the series has been just as exciting as the first, if not more, and we are only half way through it. If the second half of the season is filled with as many twists and is as exciting as the first half, fans of the show are going to be in for quite a treat.